


Wyverns and Politics

by WolffyLuna



Series: Ferdinand von Aegir Rarepair Prompt Fics [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Feudalism, Loyalty, M/M, POV Claude von Riegan, POV Ferdinand von Aegir, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Riding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:15:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22157665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolffyLuna/pseuds/WolffyLuna
Summary: Claude helps Ferdinand not get mauled by wyverns.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Claude von Riegan
Series: Ferdinand von Aegir Rarepair Prompt Fics [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1594915
Kudos: 37





	Wyverns and Politics

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a tumblr prompt by ferdinands-love-club/stag-of-almyra/[almyran_stag](https://archiveofourown.org/users/almyran_stag/pseuds/almyran_stag)

I’m going to be open for Ferdinand rare pair requests for the next week or so, so feel free to send some in!

Ferdinand knew horses. He’d grown up around them, and learned to ride them as soon as his parents felt confidant he wouldn’t immediately fall off. He knew how horses thought—their love of their herd, their mixed curiosity and fear at new things, they way they responded to fright and treats and leg pressure. He understood them.

He knew dogs, too. To a lesser extent then horses, but he could read their body language well enough to recognise fear and joy and prey-lust and excited obedience.

He did not know wyverns. He knew they were ridden, like horses. He knew they were predators, like dogs. So it seemed reasonable enough to assume they were half way between horses and dogs, until he found any differences. And it was a duty of a noble to give it all your all in your assigned tasks, and to show initiative, and so he went to retrieve the wyvern he would be riding for this week’s assignment by himself. He knew which stable she lived in, and had enough instruction to know how to tighten her girth strap and lead her out, and that was, in theory, all he needed to do.

He felt prepared.

It was, unfortunately, a false sense of preparedness.

He had walked in, tried to tighten her girth strap, and immediately gotten bitten and backed into a corner for his trouble.

A noble did not call out for help needlessly, so he was a bit stuck. Only a little, of course. Once he worked out how to approach her, without her attempted to puncture his flesh again , he would be set.

He stared at her. It was how he had cowed his father’s guard dogs, who forgot they should not try to menace their master’s son. Assuming wyverns were doggish horses had in some ways gotten him into this mess, but it was his best idea for how to get out of it.

She stared back.

“Well, you seem a little stuck.” Claude leaned over the stable gate, hands dangling into the stable itself (courageously close to the snapping jaws of an enraged wyvern, by Ferdinand’s read.)

“Only momentarily—”

“You’ve been there ten minutes. Petra’s been waiting.” He paused, and looked at Ferdinand’s arm. “Also, you’re bleeding.”

Ferdinand conceded his staring contest to look down at his own arm. “So I am,” he said, somewhat puzzled. He’d felt the scrape of her teeth, but he had assumed it was merely that, a scrape, and that she had not broken skin. …he hoped that the scent of blood did not make wyverns go strange, as it did for horses and dogs.

“You’d better get that checked out, wyvern bites are nasty.” He opened the door, and strode in nonchalantly. “And considering you’ve been bitten, I’d better help a pal out.”

“It really is not necessary—” he said, vainly trying to save face.

Claude tightened her girth strap in one move, and the wyvern merely squinted in annoyance. “Don’t worry about it, they always give the first-timers trouble.” He left with a jaunty wave. “Good luck!”

Ferdinand paused for a second, before he realised the thing he had forgotten to do. “Thank you very much for your assistance!” he called out.

Claude didn’t seem to notice. (Or maybe he did, and felt no need to react? Ferdinand had the trick for reading horses and dogs. He hadn’t found the trick for wyverns, and he was not sure he had found the trick for Claude.) 

* * *

Ferdinand walked back to the wyvern stables after breakfast the next morning, bandage tight around his arm, and Manuela’s admonishment still ringing in his ears (“Don’t ride with an injury like that! And certainly don’t leave a wyvern bite untended for hours, their mouths are nasty things—“)

Claude caught up with him, and handed him a bowl. “Here you go: a bribe.”

Ferdinand took it automatically, and looked down. It was bowl of old sausages from yesterday’s breakfast, that didn’t smell like they had turned _yet_ , though he was reluctant to put them to the test in his stomach. He blinked at them, and paused. What was the most polite way to say to your better “Please do not bribe me, it is unbecoming conduct for a noble to accept a bribe” and “Please do not bribe me, I do not want old sausages”?

Claude saw his confusion. “For the wyvern. Their just like people: quickest way to their hearts is through their stomachs.” He winked.

“Thank you once again for your assist—”

“Don’t mention it. I’m just paying it forward, pal.”

* * *

Claude and Ferdinand saw each other at the wyvern stables more and more. Ferdinand seemed quite taken with the creatures, after his unfortunate first impression. Claude couldn’t blame him—they were strong willed, and independent, and generally only took suggestions instead of commands, but they were lovely animals.

Over time Ferdinand, went from someone he merely called ‘friend’ or ‘pal,’ to an actual one. He was loyal and driven, and his noble ideal was much less “I am better than everyone” and more “I should strive to be better than everyone,” which, while an odd philosophy, was one Claude could respect.

They gave advice to each other on assignments, Claude teaching him about wyverns, and Ferdinand imparting horse-y wisdom. 

(Claude sat on the arena’s sawdust floor, hip still sore from his fall, after his mount spooked at a wall they had ridden past twenty times before with no incident. “I don’t quite see what you seen them.” He shook his head. “They’re far too flighty.”

Ferdinand hopped off his horse, to lend him a hand up. “That could be true,” he said. “But once they trust you, once you are part of their herd—that loyalty, that partnership, is like little else in this world.”

He took the hand, and brushed the dirt off his pants once he was upright. “I don’t mind my partners not listening to me, from time to time, if they didn’t throw me off when they get scared.” )

When they had free time, they shared tea together, and discussed politics and history and philosophy and duty and riding.

It was a good friendship. And it would stay like that: friendship. Nothing more.

Even if Ferdinand had some interest in him, his noble ideal did seem to involve marrying someone and having as many Crest-bearing babies as possible. He’d said as much, even if not directly about himself. Spoke while sipping his bergamot about the duty of Crest bearers to protect those he did not have them, and to protect future generations of those lacking Crests by making future generations of bearers.

And, well, that wasn’t going to happen between the two of them. Better save the heartbreak there and then.

Plus, even if Ferdinand was speaking in general, rather than specifically about his own duties—when he wasn’t chasing after the noble ideal, he was chasing after the ideal of Edelgard. Which maybe wasn’t super healthy, but Claude wasn’t going to judge. But he could see all the little ways he could twist it, point Ferdinand’s ideals at him, make himself the object of that idealistic devotion with just a few words here and there over tea and cleaning wyvern tack. Ferdinand thrived on goals and ideals and it would be so simple to just change the direction he pointed ever so slightly–

It was tempting. The idea made him feel slimy. So he put that plan in the “don’t” bucket and tried to forget he’d ever thought about it.

And then Edelgard went and made that temptation a moot point, and his and Ferdinand’s friendship too. Maybe some people could stay friends with the person who drove them out of a monastery, and made a serious attempt to do kill them, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t that person.

It was a shame, really.

* * *

_4 years later._

Claude stared through a palace window.

A messenger skidded to a halt next to him, panting. “My lord, there is someone in the courtyard who insists on seeing you.”

That didn’t surprise him. He’d just seen a wyvern rider coming in, hard and fast—not wearing Leicester colours, a skilled flier, but still having trouble dodging the arrows and wyvern riding guards aiming for him and—well, it wasn’t like Fódlan lacked for red heads, but he still had a quiver of hope in his heart. (He hoped that that was who was demanding an audience. When the strange wyvern rider dropped out of the sky, he could not tell if it was to land, or because they had been struck in the heart by an arrow.)

He walked to the courtyard as fast as he could.

Standing on the tiles, an old wyvern, battle scarred and with the brand of Garreg Mach on her shoulder, scratched her head. In front of her, stood a warrior in Black Eagles colours, but with every bit of insignia painstakingly seam-ripped out, and long red hair. _Ferdinand._ He looked different. Not just older, but _older_ —having the bearing of someone who had seen some shit, if he had the liberty of being vulgar in his own head.

(He wondered if he looked _older_ to Ferdinand, too. The beard would help.)

Ferdinand sank to one knee, formal and courtly and like an example illustration from an etiquette book. “My liege,” he said.

“I’m not your liege.” Because he wasn’t. Ferdinand was the Duke of Aegir, so his liege was Edelgard nigh definitionally. And he had followed her to war, and if that didn’t count as vassalage then _nothing did_ —Even discounting that, he wasn’t going to point that devotion at himself deliberately if he could help it. Not now.

Ferdinand looked up at him—a breach of etiquette, and it surprised Claude that Ferdinand didn’t seem to care. He spoke fast, a shake of adrenaline and twinge of desperation in his voice. “Yes. Yes, you are. I am making—I am formally requesting to be your vassal.”

Claude lifted him up by the shoulders, and looked him in the eyes. If asked, he’d say it was to try and read Ferdinand’s intention, see if he was lying—but he didn’t need to. Ferdinand was a man of honour. If there was anything he would not play false on, it was matters of lieges and vassals and duties and loyalties. He’d only admit it to himself, but he was just looking at Ferdinand’s face, trying to map what had changed and what had stayed. (It was definitely Ferdinand. He was older, less bright—but he was Ferdinand.)

He stared back—ready for rebuke, but determined to stay at Claude’s side.

How could he say no? He embraced Ferdinand, and clapped him on the back. “It’s good to have you back, pal.”


End file.
